Globally popular video streaming platform, YouTube has been working towards enhancing user experience on both Android and iOS. YouTube has recently announced it will be rolling out its picture-in-picture support for iOS and iPadOS which will allow users to play videos in the background while using other apps. However, a report suggest the picture-in-picture feature will be rolling out to iOS users who have subscribed to YouTube Premium.
Picture-in-picture (PiP) facility of YouTube has been available for Android users for a while and the feature will now be extended to iOS users. Users will now be able to exit the app and still have the video running in the background on a small screen. Although Apple had announced support for picture-in-picture feature with the release of iOS 14, YouTube had never launched this feature on Apple devices. To avail the PiP feature, users can simply play the video on the YouTube app and then press the home button. The video will be compressed to the PiP mode and the smaller window can be easily dragged anywhere across the screen. YouTube also users to resize the mini player by pinching with two fingers. For now, the feature will be available to use for iOS users who are Premium subscribers in the United States with the company planning to extend this feature to all iPhone and iPad users in the U.S. soon.
The picture-in-picture mode could be availed through watching YouTube videos on Safari or other browsers but back in September 2020 this function was removed by either YouTube or Apple. With the YouTube for iOS getting officially support for PiP, the back and forth of playing YouTube in small window will end. The PiP support is first expected to reach users in the U.S. but presumably it will be expanded to other markets as well.
